


Teenage Dirtbag

by clockheartedcrocodile



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Ableism, Car Chases, Citadel of Ricks, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Literal Sleeping Together, Platonic Cuddling, Trans Male Character, Trans Morty Smith, Transphobia, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-26 20:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30111687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clockheartedcrocodile/pseuds/clockheartedcrocodile
Summary: Morty's just trying to get reasonably priced bottom surgery, broh.He didn't think he'd end up witnessing a premeditated Rickicide, broh.
Relationships: Rick Sanchez & Morty Smith
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Teenage Dirtbag

**Author's Note:**

> This fic takes place in the same universe as "The Planetary Mindset" but they are completely unrelated and you do not have to read one to read the other!

The big city’s fine if you don’t want to be noticed. Morty’s used to that, used to being the last one picked, the creep, the one they overlooked. Standing out is even harder on the Citadel. Here, he’s a Morty among Mortys.

That suits him just fine.

Morty’s earbuds are in and his phone is off. He doesn’t want to be bothered. His featureless yellow hoody is zipped up to the throat, hood pulled up and over to shield his face from the sprinkle of artificial rain. His white Converse juniors are soaked. He stepped in a puddle. He’s wearing his backpack in the front like he’s some kind of tourist.

And everywhere, _everywhere,_ noise.

The Citadel is dirty and loud, and the streets are full of deadbeat Ricks pushing souvenirs and portal fluid. All the floating billboards in the universe can’t make up for the boozy smell. The city is an alcoholic. It drinks up Ricks like Jim Beam, and Mortys right along with them.

The artificial rain seems bizarrely out of place. Cotton candy clouds in a graying sky. Morty’s watch beeps, reminding him of the hour, and the clouds peel back like paper. The rain stops right on schedule. Morty shoves his hood back and squints up at the sky, where the sun is setting behind the floating bridges. Late evening on the Citadel. The clinic’s probably closing soon.

Still. He has to try.

Morty’s phone is upside-down in the mesh pocket of his backpack. He pulls it out, checks the GPS. Not far now, that’s good. Morty pockets it again just as he walks past a Rick slumped on a dirty blanket on the sidewalk. He tries not to look at him. It doesn’t matter if this Rick is a stranger- it’s hard to see Rick like that. It’s hard to see _any_ Rick like that.

This Rick leers at him as he walks past. Sallow-skinned and drooling. “H-hey, Morty,” he croaks. “Morty. Little guy. Come sit on your grandpa’s lap, Morty.”

Morty keeps walking.

The GPS gives him something to focus on, keeps him from getting lost even in the organized chaos of the city central. Morty checks it one last time- _Fuckin’, fuckin’ lake a left at the Rick’s Spo-_ eurrgh _-rting Goods_ \- and finds himself turning off Rickth Avenue and pushing his way through the crowds towards a block of parking garages. All are tall, sparkling tubes like glass pillars, full of flying cars suspended in capsules like gachapon. The sunset refracting through the glass makes Morty squints and look away. He walks on and the sun sets altogether, turning the gray sky to black. A messy band of pinkish stars gleams across the sky like an arterial spray. The moons- one a pale silver eye and the other a larger, lavender disk- are at eight o’clock and ten o’clock tonight. Must be June.

That’s one thing Morty loves about the Citadel. Perhaps the only thing. The stars are so bright, so close and many-colored. He doesn’t get that on earth. Even in the suburbs, he can’t see the stars.

The clinic, when he finally gets there, is something of a let down. It’s a flat, oblong building, steely gray and reflective. Morty can see flashes of green portal light coming from behind it. The parking lot, by contrast, is wide and empty. A far cry from the densely-packed parking garages up the street.

Morty walks through the sliding doors to the front office and is greeted with the overpowering smell of sugar and aloe vera. There’s no waiting room. Only a check-in desk, beyond which stretches a long carpeted hallway. Morty sees perhaps ten or fifteen doors going all the way down, each to a different office.

The Rick at the counter is playing his DS. He glances briefly at Morty then returns to his game. “Third door on the left,” he says around the stylus in his mouth.

“Sherp,” says Morty, his brain trying to say _sure_ and _yep_ at the same time. He flushes dark red and can feel himself beginning to sweat. He shuffles past the Rick at the desk without looking at him and opens the third door down, ducking in and shoving the door closed again with his foot.

The waiting room is sparse and brightly lit, with pinkish walls and a linoleum floor. A weird, prickly plant is sitting on a table by the door, and in one corner of the room Morty can see a plastic table loaded with intergalactic skin mags. The fish tank has a single bug-eyed lunar ray.

Another desk, and another Rick. He squints at Morty through his green-tinted visor, but doesn’t say anything. Morty awkwardly walks up to him and rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet. He can feel how sticky his armpits are. His stomach clenches and unclenches with nerves.

“Uh . . .” he says weakly. “Is this, is this the Mortiatrics department?”

“Su- _eurrgh_ -re is,” says Rick. He raises his one sloping eyebrow. “This about your g-goddamn teeth again, Morty? It’s called, it’s called brushing.”

“What? N-no,” Morty stammered, taken aback. His hand jumps to his mouth. “M-my teeth are fine, wh-what the hell, Rick!”

Rick shrugs. His cellophane uniform creaks loudly. “N-no big whoop, dawg. All M-mortys have tr _-eurrgh-_ ouble with it. It’s a brain chemistry thing,” he taps his temple. “The right Morthodontist can, can fix them right up for you, Morty. Make it so y-you don’t have to brush ‘em ever, M-morty, and they’re fine.”

“That’d be amazing, actually,” says Morty distractedly, lowering his hand. Then he shakes his head, waves his hands to remind himself what he’s doing. “N-no, I’m. I’m here for, um. I was hoping m-maybe I could, I could see a nurse?”

Rick exhales sharply through his nose. He looks Morty up and down, just the once, before tapping the frame of his visor with is index finger. The tint darkens to black. “Name?”

“Morty E-958.”

Rick is silent for a few moments. Then, “Looks like we don’t have a fuckin’, a fuckin’ Morty E-958 on file.”

“Try under Morticia,” Morty croaks.

“Uh-huh,” Rick grunts. He idly taps the frame of his visor with his fingertips, turning it back to a semi-transparent minty green. “N-no appointment, huh, Morty?”

“No appointment.”

“And you w-wanna talk to the nurse because . . ?”

“C-can’t you fucking guess?” Morty blurts out.

Rick leans back in his chair. His flask is buckled into his apron pocket; he takes it out and swigs long and slow before saying anything. Then he wipes his mouth on his wrist. “Is this about f-fitting in or some shit, Morty?” he says. His eyes are narrowed behind his visor. “Wanna be just like aaall the other Mortys, huh?”

It feels like ice water’s trickling down his back. “No,” says Morty sharply. His hands tighten on the straps of his backpack. “It’s not like that.”

“What’s it like, then?” Rick scoffs. He puts his feet up on the desk, one after the other. “You talked to your R- _eurrgh-_ ick about this?”

“It’s none of Rick’s g-goddamn, goddamn business, okay?” Morty’s hands clenched tighter. “I portaled here without him!”

“Alright, alright, Jesus,” says Rick, holding up his hands in surrender. “Shit, Morty. I mean, goddamn. Wow. I can get you in la- _eurrgh_ -ter this afternoon. Y-you’re looking to rewire the ol’, the ol’ cock socket?”

The thought is like taking an EMP to the heart. Morty nods.

“S-sure thing,” burps Rick, tapping his visor. Again it darkens to black. “Y-ou, y’know, y’know, Morty, you could’ve asked your R-rick to do that shit if you- _eurrgh-_ wanted an outie, not an innie. If I were me, and I am, I could do the saaame surgery in my garage out of, out of tin cans and washing machine parts. ’S not a big deal, Morty. You can g-get any kind of dick you want, Morty.”

 _’S not a big deal,_ Morty thinks a little desperately. _Nothing’s a big deal to him. But it is a big deal. It is. It is._

The tint lightens to green, giving Rick’s eyes a greasy alien shine. “Later this afternoon l- _eurrgh_ -ike I said. Sit tight and try not to piss yourself with excitement, we just had the floors waxed.”

Morty’s ears are ringing and there’s a black hole of anxiety yawning open in his gut but goes to sit down anyway, lowering himself shakily into one of the wobbly chairs by the table. He takes a deep breath, exhales. He’s doing this. He’s really fucking doing this.

Morty glances down at the pile of skin mags. He picks one up, flips through it. Then another. All feature redheads. The rest of the table is littered with unopened packs of crayons and the walls are decorated with peeling GIR stickers at about Morty’s eye level. A plastic bucket bolted to the table contains informational pamphlets with titles like _Preparing for Mortpatient Surgery_ and _You’re Not My Rick!: A Morty’s Guide to Stranger Danger in the Big City_.

There’s a squashed pamphlet for the space boy scouts shoved in the back and Morty puns it out, flattens it on his knee. He turns it over in his hands and feels a familiar bittersweet twinge of interest at the sight of the juvenile aliens, all lined up proudly with their little sashes and fishbowl helmets. Morty had been born irregular- he liked to say he _had a condition_ \- and that condition had meant he’d missed out on being a space boy scout. Or even an _earth_ boy scout.

Morty briefly entertains the thought of crumpling up the pamphlet. Instead he places it carefully back in its holder and sits with his eyes downcast, bouncing his heel on the ground. It’s for the best, anyway. If he’d gotten into the space boy scouts Rick probably would’ve signed on as a councilor just to dick with him. Now there was a thought.

The waiting room fills up as the day goes on. Morty shrinks down in his seat and tries to make himself as small as possible. He’s acutely aware that some of these Mortys are ill, or in need of a _real_ surgery, and here he is taking up space in search of something purely cosmetic.

A Rick comes in by himself just after lunch. He walks with a spry step that Morty’s never seen in his Rick, and his ball cap is tilted up off the face. He smiles. His coat falls open when he leans his elbow on the counter and Morty sees twenty manipulator chips blinking slowly on his belt. Morty glances up at the door. He can see the shapes of several Mortys peering in through the frosted glass.

“C-c’mon, Morty,” says the Rick- _I’ll call him Ace Trainer Rick,_ Morty thinks dully- as he pushes open the door with his elbow, letting a pair of Morty’s into the room. “We’re early.”

They sit down, all three of them, on the opposite wall from Morty’s little space. The Mortys look chipper in their space boy scout uniforms and colorful bandannas. One has a bandaged head, and the other is made of semi-translucent goo. From their badges, it looks like they’ll be graduating soon.

One of them catches Morty’s eye across the room. Morty ducks his head, stares at the ground. He wonders what they’re there for. If they’re sick, or worse. He feels like he’s in the way.

“Hey, you got StreetPass?” says Ace Trainer Rick, pulling out his DS. The Rick at the desk brightens up noticeably, and as the two begin to chat, another Rick sidles in and sits down without talking to anyone. This one’s a lizard.

Morty puts his earbuds in and scrolls through his music. Desperate for something to distract him. He puts on “Teenage Dirtbag” and stares off into the middle distance, letting the music chase itself in circles around his head.

The waiting room’s almost empty now. Just him, the lizard, and Ace Trainer Rick. Morty’s been there for a while now and he’s starting to lose what little nerve he possessed. He wants to get it over with.

He’s starting to wish that Rick were here. Maybe then at least he’d have someone to talk to.

It’s a good twenty minutes before the next Rick comes in. This one walks different from the other Ricks; a little more swagger, a little more music video. He’s got a candy-colored lab coat and matching sunglasses, and he rolls a toothpick in his mouth before he speaks.

A Morty follows after him at a distance, and before Morty can say anything the new one’s slipped into a seat beside him, throwing his arms up over his head and leaning back in his chair. “I hate doctor’s appointments,” he says, mumbling around the lollipop in his mouth. “At l-least, least this one won’t take long, amirite?”

Morty looks away hurriedly and stares down at his shoes. He can feel himself beginning to sweat, his skin flushing scarlet. He’s never seen a Morty dressed like that. He’s never seen a Morty with long hair, bleached blonde and brown at the roots. He looks like a girl. A little bit like how Morty used to look.

Except there’s a bulge in those mid-rise bikini shorts. Morty’s fists clench in his lap and he tries to remind himself not to feel jealous.

Jealous. Of a _Morty._ There’s a joke for you.

“Wh-what’s a matter?” says the blonde Morty. He shrugs out of his cropped leopard print and slings it over the back of his chair. “You deaf, or somethin’?”

Morty shakes his head.

“Nervous,” says the Morty, nodding wisely. _Noy-vuss_. “I get it. First time?”

“Uh, yeah,” Morty croaks. “First time.”

“Me an’ Rick, we’re, we’re old hats at this kinda thing,” says the Morty, nodding at his Rick, who has now gone to sit beside the lizard. “Not usually a-at the Citadel though. I m-mean we usually stay in Miami. My Rick pushes k-lax,” he adds, almost proudly. “Wh-what does yours do, huh, stranger?”

“J-just the usual Rick things, I guess.”

“Cool, cool,” the other Morty glances over at his Rick, then back at Morty. “Can’t stop starin’ at him, huh?”

Morty snaps his eyes away. “Uh. I mea-me-m-”

“I get it,” says the other Morty, grinning. He winks at Morty and leans in, so close that Morty can smell his bubblegum lip gloss. “He’s pretty f-freaky, right? N-not like the other R-ricks out there.”

“He s-seems alright to me . . .”

“N-nah, you don’t know him like I know him. S-sometimes I think that if, if you cut him in half, all that’ll fall out is candy, k-lax, and VHS tapes. Y-you ever see _Videodrome_?”

“No,” says Morty, and the other Morty sighs and finally pulls back.

“Aw, geez. S-such a good flick. Super fucked up. I loved it,” He starts picking idly at one of the GIR stickers on the wall and manages to peel it off. He rubs it between his fingers, wiping the sticky stuff all over his hands. “You’re p-probably more of a cartoons guy,” he says, looking at the sticker. “I g-guess all Mortys are into Invader Zim, huh?”

Morty nods mutely. He hasn’t watched Zim for a long time, and he only watched it in the first place because someone at school told him that the Membrane family were white Mexicans. That was the first thing Morty ever knew about Rick, before everything- he was a white Mexican. Jerry had told him that.

That was a long time ago, though. He hasn’t watched Invader Him in a while.

The Rick at the desk glances down at his watch, looks up again. “Morty E-958.”

“Yeah,” says Morty. “Yes. That's me.”

“He’ll be out in a minute.”

Miami Morty elbows Morty in the ribs. “Don’t worry about it, hon,” he grins around his lollipop. “Y-you’re nervous, I can tell. Don’t worry about it. Rick’ll take care of the messy stuff, he always does.”

The office door slides open and Morty sits a little straighter in his chair, expectant. This Rick has a stethoscope and a bored expression. He looks down at his clipboard and flips a few pages up.

“Well, big shocker. Next up is uhhh . . . Morty Smith,” he says, and his head explodes.

Morty screams. The body, blasted neck already cauterizing, slumps to the floor. The red spray paints the wall the color of a wine spill. Lizard Rick lowers the gun.

“Shit,” he says. “Really thought that’ be h- _eurrgh-_ arder.”

“What the fuggg . . .” groans the Rick at the desk, slumping unconscious over his DS. Ace Trainer Rick stands, plucks a needle from the other Rick’s neck, and rolls it between thumb and forefinger. Miami Morty shrugs as if to say, _it is what it is._

Morty’s brain is full of popping static. “Wh-what the hell, Rick?” he croaks, addressing it to the room at large.

“Shut up, Morty,” says Lizard Rick, leaning over the body. He flips it over with his tail and begins rifling through the pockets.

“This guy’s a shady one, Morty,” Ace Trainer Rick smiles. He drops his hand onto Morty’s shoulder and squeezes it. “Trust me. Some reeeal fucked up shit. And anyway think of the schmeckles, babyyy!”

Miami Rick, the one with the sunglasses and the toothpick, ducks his head out the door to make sure no Ricks come running. When he comes back his brow is furrowed. “If y-you didn’t want in then why’d you sh _-eurrgh_ -ow up, huh?”

Morty feels like he’s going insane. “I’m just here for an appointment!” he yelps.

“What the hell?”

“I thought you said this place would be empty!”

“I didn’t count on a fucking _Morty-_ ”

“You’re not in on it?” says Miami Morty, incredulous. He’s staring at Morty with his mouth agape.

“In on what?” Morty looks around wildly. _“In on what?”_

“Fuck off, Rick,” Miami Rick’s standing over him now, looking down at him with a cynical air. “Morty, stop talking to him. We’re gonna have to kill him.”

“Kill me?” Morty squeaks.

“No witnesses, remember?” Miami Rick gestures for the gun. “No fuckin’, fuckin’ witnesses. Gimme the gun.”

“Wait!” says Morty desperately. It’s all going so wrong so fast. “I won’t tell anyone, I swear I won’t tell any-”

He bolts in midsentence, toppling Miami Morty in his chair. Lizard Rick yells and jumps after him with inhuman speed. He collides with Miami Rick in mid lunge and Morty’s already out the door, down the hall, flying past another desk Rick who rises from his chair only to be shot dead before he can draw his weapon.

The front doors slide open slowly, too slowly, and then Morty’s out, staggering, stumbling down the steps, almost eating shit on the wet pavement before he’s up and running, fast as he fucking can. The doors jam behind him and Morty can hear Lizard Rick forcing them open, cursing as he pries them apart with his foot and his elbow. “Ohhh shit, oh geez, fuck, fuck me, fuck,” Morty wheezes. He’s out of breath, he’s gasping. He’s bolting full-speed across the parking lot but it’s too big, too wide, he can’t make it across in time. He needs to get back up to the garages, past them to the shopping district and the packed streets. He can’t be caught out in the open. He just can’t.

 _Holy shit,_ he thinks, _a Rick’s gonna kill me. These crazy fucking Ricks are really gonna kill me._

“Fu- _eurrgh_ -cking get him! Get him!” Lizard Rick yells, braced between the sliding doors, holding them open with his foot and his arm. Morty looks over his shoulder just in time to see Miami Morty scrambling out from under him, turning, pulling Miami Rick through.

There’s a tiny little space hopper parked two rows away. Eggshell yellow, all new chrome and bubbling blue brake fluid. Morty knows a thing or two about hotwiring a spaceship so he wrenches the door open, clambers inside. Forces the seat up so his legs reach the pedals. There’s a ball cap on the shotgun seat. It’s Ace Trainer Rick’s car. Morty rips out a handful of cables and starts fumbling with them.

“C’mon,” he stammers. He burns himself on the sparks but doesn’t feel it. “C’mon, c’mon, _c’mon._ ”

The engine roars- ignition. Morty whips his head up in time to see Miami Rick running at him full speed, his Morty behind him. Morty shrieks and throws the car into reverse.

The sudden lurch of speed almost sends him up and over the dash. By the time the car slows down he’s almost hit the tin guardrail around the property. In one quick movement Morty spins the car, almost flips it, frictionless, in the air, then guns the engine to try and fly up the nearest side street towards the parking garages.

It stalls.

“Shit, fuck, no no no!” Morty’s face goes white. He starts slamming buttons everywhere he can reach. Radio. Windshield wipers. Nanobots.

Miami Rick’s almost reached him and he’s got something in his hand. _A weapon?_ Morty thinks, panicked, but no. Car keys. Morty’s hand finds the emergency overhaul just as Miami Rick, still running, clicks them twice at his Morty. Through the windshield glass Morty can hear a muffled “Take me for a ride, baby!” as Miami Morty trips, convulses, twitches violently on the ground as his limbs crack and elongate.

Flesh swells, splits. Chrome shines beneath the tan instead of breaking bones. Morty just barely gets a glimpse of Miami Morty’s torso elongating into a bubblegum pink chassis before the overhaul launches him up and over the guard rail and up the side street. His foot finds the gas and slams it down. A crosswalk full of Ricks scatters into a dozen portals and when they portal back behind him they’re all spitting curses.

Morty doesn’t care. He’s scared. He’s fucking scared.

He hears the muffled roar of a car behind him and checks the rearview. Sure enough it’s a space Cadillac, pink, still with flecks of glitter on the fenders from Miami Morty’s shoulders. Miami Rick’s behind the wheel. His elbow is on the window. He’s not even _trying._ The two Ricks in the backseat are clambering over each other, each fumbling with their ray guns. One of them- the lizard- takes aim.

 _“Shit!”_ Morty swerves into the opposite lane, almost gets t-boned by a space truck. The turnoff takes him up to an overpass, the kind of Seussian labyrinth where the flying cars take their exits. Morty hits the dividing rail hard, flipping the ship and sending it spinning through the gaps between streets. Horns and sirens blare at him from every direction. Morty grips the wheel till his knuckles turn white and bites his lip until it bleeds. “Jeezus!” he whines, fumbling with the clutch. “Jeezus fuck!”

The space Cadillac leaps through lanes and between lines of traffic, warping reality in a foggy smear of spacial decay behind it. It catches up to Morty just as he throws the car into reverse. They pass each other in a blur- Morty can see his face in Miami Rick’s sunglasses- and then Morty is shooting backwards down the road to the factory district. The Cadillac loses momentum so suddenly that it nearly drops out of the air. Then it’s up again, barreling towards him, and Morty has a lear view of Ace Trainer Rick standing up in the backseat and gripping the headrests for support.

“Oh shit!” Morty yelps. He tries to swerve onto a side street but forgets that going backwards means right is left. He clips a mailbox and the car nearly spins out. “Oh fuck!”

The Cadillac is gaining. Ace Trainer Rick throws something at him- no, two somethings. They latch onto the car hood like magnets, drawn toward him through the slipstream. Morty has just enough time to see that they’re metal capsules when they pop open in a burst of green light. The boy scout Mortys- one sticky, the other bandaged- are clinging to the hood of the car.

Morty screams. The Morty with the bandaged head screams back.

The car freezes as though in suspended animation and Morty, untethered, flies out of the driver’s seat and hits the back window. The world shatters. Popping white lights dance in his eyes as his vision swims, grows blurry. Dimly, Morty is aware of a thick, gooey substance submerging him, clinging to his clothes and sucking at his skin. His arms feel like they’re caked in molasses. He can’t really move them.

One of the backseat doors pops open and Goo Morty slithers out onto the concrete, dragging Morty with him. Morty kicks weakly as the world comes into focus again. Cars are flinging themselves down the highways around him, honking like mad. Telepathic Morty halted him right in the middle of the road and now they’ve dragged him out onto the median strip. The space Cadillac pulls up alongside them and the three Ricks hop out. The honking stops. The cars move around them and keep going.

Same old story. Ricks killing Mortys.

Lizard Rick is standing over him now and Morty’s eyes start watering. He has to struggle to keep from sinking deeper into Goo Morty and suffocating in his center. It’s almost like treading water. “Grandpa Rick,” he croaks, but the Rick is already leveling his laser between Morty’s eyes.

His bulbous, yellow eyes are nothing like Rick’s, but Morty can see Rick behind them. Thinking it over.

A screeching horn jolts him out of the moment. Lizard Rick looks to the right and Morty, seeing what’s coming, takes a deep breath and ducks down into Goo Morty just as half a spaceship slaps Lizard Rick off the median strip. He goes flying, hits a guard rail. The hunk of spaceship carves a deep furrow in the pavement as it skids along the road. The portal- sickly green and still sizzling in the air where it bifurcated an oncoming space cruiser- slurps itself out of existence, leaving Rick standing on the median. His lip is curled, his yellow teeth bared. He looks pissed.

“What the hell, Morty?” he snaps, waving his portal gun in Morty’s direction. He draws his laser with the other hand and banks a shot off Goo Morty’s shoulder. He shrinks back like a slug, squealing, leaving Morty lying stickily on the ground. “Where the fuck have you been?”

“Rick,” says Morty, dazed. He can feel a momentary shiver in the universe, that little prickle of I-know-you that slithers down his vertebrae whenever he sees his Rick. Rick liked to call it the “game recognize game” instinct, a Rick or Morty’s natural means of identifying their own particular counterpart in a crowd. Morty just calls it the shining.

“Don’t move,” Rick says sharply, taking aim at Ace Trainer Rick in the act of dragging his Mortys out of the line of fire. “Don’t, don’t even fucking _think_ about it.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Miami Rick’s hand is already inching towards the door of his car. “Easy there. Don’t do anything stupid, Rick.”

Rick scowled. “What the hell are y-you doing here? It’s poker night.”

“I h-had a job in the city, and your _Morty,_ ” Miami Rick put a nasty little emphasis on the word, “got in the way. I wan’t, wasn’t gonna kill him,” he added, his hands jumping up in surrender. “I swear. F-fuckin’, fuckin’ cross my heart.”

Rick’s eyes are narrowed in suspicion. He makes a little _tsk-tsk_ sound that Morty knows means, _get up_. Morty pushes himself to his feel, feeling a little wobbly in the knees, and takes Rick’s outstretched portal gun. He fumbles with the dial then points it at the ground. He thinks of home.

“Good,” Rick says coldly. “Y’better, y’better fu- _eurrgh_ -cking mean that. I’ll make sure the l-l-little shit doesn’t tell anybody and you, you make sure you don’t expect to c-come knocking on my door anytime soon.”

Morty pulls the trigger and the ground phases into sticky green portal fluid. He plunges into it, Rick following, but not before he catches a glimpse of Miami Rick’s smile.

The portal opens into the living room, back on Earth, and expels Morty violently onto the couch. He rolls off it onto the floor, groaning. Rick lands neatly with barely a grunt, and reaches down to roll Morty onto his back with one hand. “What _happened?_ ” he says, more surprised than anything.

His fingers touch Morty’s neck, feeling for a pulse to indicate stress responses. Morty endures it, annoyed, and doesn’t try to get up off the carpet. “I just- I just, I went to that Mortiatrics clinic, the one by the parking g-garages.”

“Reeeal smart, Morty,” says Rick drily. He takes his hand away and pokes Morty’s belly with his shoe. “Reeeal fuckin’ galaxy-brained shit right there, Morty. That clinic is a joke. You know the, the Rick who runs the place is wanted for Mortbezzlement?”

“N-not anymore,” Morty mutters. He swats Rick’s leg away and holds up a hand. Rick drags him to his feet. “I’m just, I feel, I. I’m. I saw a murder, Rick. I’m exhausted.”

“Take a fuckin’ nap then,” Rick shrugs out of his lab coat and bundles it up. “That’s wh-what I’m doing. In case you haven’t noticed it’s one-ay-goddamn-em.”

“A nap won’t make the _murder_ go away, Rick.”

“It’ll make the tired go away, dipshit,” says Rick, which Morty really can’t dispute. His legs feel like lead and his ears are still ringing. He’s this close to pitching forward and falling asleep on his face.

It doesn’t seem worth it to go all the way upstairs so he just plops down on the couch next to Rick, who kicks his legs up onto Morty’s lap. “Stop _kicking_ me, Rick,” Morty whines, pushing Rick’s legs off. “What if I kicked you, huh? Huh?” He rolls onto his back, his head on the opposite armrest, and kicks halfheartedly at Rick’s ribs.

Rick tucks his lab coat under his head and untangles his long, bony legs just enough for Morty to find a semblance of space. “Betcha can’t count backwards from ten.”

“Ten,” says Morty, and he closes his eyes.

Breakfast the next morning is egg and toast on a plate with half a muffin, still in its wrapper, beside it. Morty’s ravenous. He eats his way through his meal and half of Rick’s before Summer’s even finished her toast. Rick doesn’t comment; he’s too busy making snide comments about medical politics to make Beth giggle into her morning box wine.

“Whoa, what’s up, hon?” says Jerry, nudging Morty’s foot under the table. “You usually just pick at your food. Have you been eating okay?”

“Yeah, dad. Fine,” Morty mumbles, reaching across to nab the juice pitcher. “J-just had a big, a big day adventuring with Rick, you know how it is.”

“Stop bugging him, dad,” Summer doesn’t look up from her phone.

“Oh, I can’t ask how she is now?” says Jerry testily, leaning one elbow on the table. “I don’t get to talk about her space adventures? I like space! I can talk about space too, _Summer._ ”

Summer rolls her eyes. “He didn’t even _mention_ space.”

“A big day adventuring with Rick, that’s what she said, and that means either space,” Jerry’s counting on his fingers now, “or a fucked up alternate dimension, or some kind of alien drug deal or something. So what was it this time?” He picks up his fork again and sourly pokes it at his eggs. “A high speed chase or an assassination?”

“Both, actually,” says Morty. His toast tastes dry now- he’s lost his appetite for it. He picks up his glass of juice and awkwardly sips from it.

Jerry looks exasperated. “Jesus Christ, Rick,” he says helplessly, gesturing around the table as though looking for familial support. “She’s fourteen.”

“For _fuck’s sake,_ Jerry,” Rick snaps. Even Summer looks up from her phone. “I have a _goddamn grandson._ ”

Morty stares down into his glass and gets really interested in the smudgy fingerprints. Jerry raises his hands in mock surrender. “He! He,” he says, almost whining. “I meant he! Just, you know. A he with a vagina. Nothing weird about that, nothing _weird_ about your strange obsession with my daughter’s opinion of her vagina.”

“ _Jerry_ ,” says Beth sharply. “If you think I-”

“What?” Jerry gestures vaguely with his arms. “What? She, _he,_ has a vagina, both of my daughters do, and you can’t expect me to just-”

“Dad-”

“-just flip it on a dime, you know? Morticia’s always been my daughter and I don’t have to be some sort of wacky space scientist to know the difference between a boy and a girl. Sum-Sum,” he adds, reaching over to touch her elbow, which she moves. “You know you don’t just _suddenly_ have a brother, right? You don’t have to play along.”

“Jerry, I think it’s best if you just stop talking right now,” says Beth, while Morty takes a long, slow sip of his juice.

“Come on, Rick,” says Jerry, and Morty chokes. He pats his chest, coughing, as Jerry continues. “You’re a scientist. You don’t believe that Morticia’s a boy just because she says she is, do you? Just because she’s different from the other girls, has a learning disability, she thinks that means she has to-”

“And what the fuck does that have to do with it, dipshit?” Rick growls. He’s speaking through clenched teeth. Morty can hear the change in his breathing and knows he’s upset, the kind of upset that makes Rick want to jump out of his chair and move around for a while until he cools off.

Jerry frowns. “Seriously? They say that twenty percent of all autistic girls end up turning transgender.”

 _“Dad!”_ says Summer, staring at him.

“Oh, now I’m the bad guy?” Jerry says incredulously. “I’m the bad guy for just stating the facts? I’m not making this up! Beth, Beth,” a note of desperation in his voice now. “You know I’m not making this up. I saw a screencap of a tweet about a Daily Mail article about it. And you know it’s not _my_ fault-”

Rick stands so abruptly that the silverware rattles. “Dad-” Beth pleads, but he’s already grabbed Morty by the wrist and heaved him up from his chair.

“Come on,” he mutters. “You don’t have to listen to this.”

“Fault?” Beth’s voice is rising. “What exactly do you mean by _fault?_ ”

“I’m just saying,” says Jerry, as Rick drags Morty out of the kitchen, “that this kind of thing tends to run in the family and she sure didn’t get it from _my_ side.”

The slam of the garage door behind them is so loud, and the resulting silence so blissfully welcome, that for a moment Morty feels like he might cry. He tugs his wrist out of Rick’s grip and wobbles over to the shelving unit, leaning both hands on it. Deep breaths. In, and out.

He hears the creak of Rick’s taped-up old desk chair as he sits down. Another creak as he leans back, puts his feet up. “You still hungry?”

Morty sniffs. Nods. He turns around and Rick’s opening a bag of Chex Mix. They’ve got a system going where Morty eats the pretzels and Rick eats everything else. This time he holds out the bag, and Morty, still sniffling, takes it.

“Y-you wanna get out of here?” says Rick. He holds open his lab coat, shows Morty the portal gun strapped to his side. Like he doesn’t know it’s there. “Any, anywhere you want, Morty. You j-just name it.”

Morty chews slowly, thinking. “Honestly, Rick,” he mumbles, eyes downcast. “I want to g-go back to the Citadel and keep, keep trying.”

Rick’s brow furrows like he’s considering something. Morty wonders, just briefly, if he’s really not going to let him go.

“You sure, Morty?” he says instead. “You better be reeeal fuckin’ sure.”

“I am,” says Morty. His voice is firm this time. “I am sure.”

Rick shrugs. “Alright,” he says, like it isn’t everything Morty wants. “But don’t go back to that shitty-ass bitch of a clinic. You should’ve talked to me first,” he adds, annoyed. “Jesus Christ. You could’ve been vaporized.”

Morty can still hear Beth and Jerry arguing, muffled, through the door. He doesn’t listen. Before Rick can stop him Morty’s grabbed him and crushed him into a hug. The chair squeaks dangerously beneath them but Morty doesn’t care. He hugs him tight enough to feel the ribs under Rick’s threadbare blue tee, and the metal reinforcement cables under those.

“A-alright, alright, little buddy,” says Rick, awkwardly untangling his arm from Morty’s grip so he can get it around Morty’s shoulders. “Don’t fuckin’, don’t fuckin’ get your kiddie drool on me.”

Morty laughs weakly, wipes his eyes with the heel of his hand. “R-right, only you can drool on your shirt.”

“Smart-ass,” Rick mutters. He shoves Morty off him- gently, making Morty hiccup with laughter- and digs around in his pocket for his phone. “Look, I know a guy. Good guy. He does all my dick reconstruction surgeries.”

“You need dick r-r-reconstruction surgeries?” says Morty, interested. He hops up on the workbench and sits with his legs dangling. He picks up the bag of Chex Mix and starts digging around for the good bits.

Rick grimaces. “I’m Rick Sanchez, motherfucker, you think I haven’t had my dick blown off more than once? Here,” he tosses his phone into Morty’s lap. “Put that up to your retina to make your account. Y-yeah, so, every time I get my fuckin’, my fuckin’ dick shot off, I g- _eurrgh_ -et a new one reconstituted from, from my body’s biological blueprints.”

“Holy shit,” says Morty. _“Awesome.”_

“You bet it is, buddy,” Rick says smugly. “Haven’t had the original hardware since Space ‘Nam.”

Morty holds the phone up to his eye. “R-Rick, are they like, like _real_ blueprints? Do th-they have your dick on file?”

“Yep,” says Rick. Then, “Don’t even fuckin’-”

“I’m doing it, m-my retina’s scanning-”

“Morty-!” Rick grabs for the phone and ducks out of the way. “You can get like, you can get a fuckin’ _cool_ dick, any dick you want-”

“I’m getting your dick,” says Morty smugly. He waggles Rick’s phone out of his reach. “One _hundo_ percent I’m copying y-your dick, are you kidding?”

Rick almost jumps over the table to get at him but now Morty’s behind the chair. “You sonuvabitch, gonna kick your ass,” Rick’s ranting, but Morty can hear him teetering on the edge of laughter. “Gonna kick- gonna kick your fuckin’ ass, give me my phone-”

And by the time Rick finally headlocks him and wrestles the phone out of his hands, Morty’s laughing till his face is sore, and the argument at the breakfast table couldn't be farther from his mind.


End file.
